Can't shoot a pokémon

Based this thread on an argument brought up in the Roleplay Corner Discussion thread.

Do man made weapons like guns have a place in the pokémon world or not? Could they even harm a pokémon and if so, are some pokémon less or more vulnerable?

In the anime, they don't show guns from what I remember. It's a very children-friendly show though, but the games never mention them either unless I've missed something. Pokémon are used for battling, warring, threatening etc. If guns were effective, wouldn't the evil teams use some form of them?

Maybe not guns, but the only weapons I remember are like those shocking cages they used in Pokemon 2000 to restrain the legendary birds. And if I remember correctly, Team Rocket also uses a bunch of weird contraptions to capture Pikachu. Point is, Pokemon are vulnerable to outside weaponry. Besides, what is a gun shot besides a fire, or a steel type move? Because it is a kid-friendly show is pretty good reason to not include guns specifically though.

I know there was a banned episode that had a gun in it. http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/EP035 Banned in the US at least.



It seems like that kind of stuff, guns and so on, isn't common in the Pokemon world. Pokemon seem to be able to be burned, electrocuted, smashed by boulders, and all sorts of things that you would expect would permanently injure or kill an animal, but Pokemon just have to get healed up at the Pokemon Center and they're fine. So either 1) Pokemon are especially tough, or 2) the Pokemon world is made of foam and rubber and nothing there is especially harmful since even people can be burned, electrocuted, etc.

Guns are in use in the Pokémon World, as expressed by the aforementioned banned episode, however ordinary viewers and players never hear about them. I assume they have the same devastating effects when used against Pokémon as with other humans.

Guns are rarely mentioned in Pokémon, because, well, the franchise is aimed mostly towards children. If they made too many references to these kind of things, lots of parents would be upset; they might even have a lawsuit heading their way. If teens and adults were their main audience, though, then that probably wouldn't have been an issue. d:

I've never seen any type of weapons in the game. In the anime, however, I've seen it only once. In season one, we had an episode called Tentacool & Tentacruel. There was a lady known as Nastina, who, with the help of her army, tried to get rid of the Tentacool that was bothering them. To scare it away, they've all used assault rifles.

Weapons of some sort must exist, not only because of the past anime references as seen above, but then there are other things like Team Rocket killing a mother Marowak back in the original games. And since Pokemon can't die in battle, it must've been some outside force that caused her to die- likely a weapon of some sort.

Despite this, I don't think that weaponry is quite as prevalent in the Pokemon world as it is here. A majority of the time, Pokemon can defend themselves using their attacks, and have even been known to fight in wars throughout the Pokemon world's history. And probably the biggest reason we never here about it is because the franchise is marketed towards a younger audience, despite the fact the main premise of the series is pitting Pokemon against each other in battles.

For a moment let's pretend, since that's what this is all about anyway, that the Pokemon world is reality. Could a human made weapon harm a pokemon? Logic states that yes, they battle until the knock each other out, but human made weapons aim to kill, and we know pokemon can die.

XY Spoiler:


This means that pokemon can be killed as well. So if one such weapon exists that can kill them, and it's made by humans, then other human made weapons probably hurt them just as much. When they are battling, they do not intend to kill each other, a strange ecosystem where life does not need to feed on sentient life at all.

But .... that's all up for grabs, because it is all just pretend.

I suppose that, even while guns may be as effective as in the real world, Pokemon themselves are far more useful as tools of violence, so there is basically little reason to use other weapons. It is a spin-off game, but I do wish to point out that even in Pokemon Conquest nobody carries a weapon, while they do all partner with monsters and do all wear armour, which given the lack of weapons one can only presume protects them from the attacks of monsters (or is entirely for show and worn as a badge of warrior status). Note also that in XY when AZ recounts the war, the scene shown depicts monsters and not human soldiers.

If there is, a tranquilizer gun would make catching pokemon a lot easier...

I doubt guns would be necessary if Pokemon were real. Ghost-type Pokemon kill people by absorbing their souls, Fire-type Pokemon can burn people to death, Fighting-types can bludgeon them, Ice-types can freeze them to death, Poison-types can do just what their type suggests, many Pokemon have sharp claws and teeth, Aggron is covered in pointy bits of metal and is pretty much literally a tank, Electrode can explode like a bomb, Houndoom's flame causes a burn that won't stop burning, Sharpedo can tear through steel ship hulls with just its teeth, Aerodactyl goes right for peoples' throats, and the list goes on.

Though guns probably would exist, they wouldn't be that dangerous compared to the Pokemon.

They do exist, and it makes no sense to me. Pokemon suffer from (seemingly) lethal elemental attacks every day and only "faint" from them, so how can a hunk of metal cause permanent damage? The only way it would make sense is if Pokemon attacks are really not as strong as they look or something like that, even though several Pokedex entries insist they do kill. Even Ash has suffered more burns and electrocutions from Pokemon than humanly possible, but he's still alive and well. Even the Kanto legendaries couldn't kill him, and he got a full blast of their attacks.

But I digress. I know of at least one instance where a Pokemon was killed by a man-made weapon, in addition to the one in X/Y mentioned in a previous post.


Which, to me at least, doesn't look so lethal if you consider all the burning and earth shattering moves Pokemon regularly use to attack one another.

This is a really deep subject... All I can picture now is a bunch of people going out on the weekend to hunt Sawsbuck or Stantler. That's just not right! :'(
Hmmm... another subject... there are no regular animals in the pokemon world. Does that mean that people eat... POKEMON MEATS? The entire world can't be vegetarians! This is too disturbing! I don't want Miltank steak!

isthatyoudan said:

This is a really deep subject... All I can picture now is a bunch of people going out on the weekend to hunt Sawsbuck or Stantler. That's just not right! :'(
Hmmm... another subject... there are no regular animals in the pokemon world. Does that mean that people eat... POKEMON MEATS? The entire world can't be vegetarians! This is too disturbing! I don't want Miltank steak!

Click to expand...

There's a lot of evidence for that people eat Pokemon - in the games, Slowpoke Tail is considered a delicacy, and the Pokedex in the anime says that Farfetch'd are "delicious". That's just two off the top of my head, but I know there's more instances where it's explicitly stated that Pokemon are food.

...but we're getting off topic, sorry OP! :3c

This is very possible, projectiles and shorthand alike. As many before mentioned, there are a lot of references for this and a Episode was even banned for this (it aired two years later though if I remember). Team Rocket did cut SlowpokeTail too, right? So it's not a far-off theory. It's a type of violence that I wouldn't dwell into, but I think that they wouldn't dare sell weapons like this in public.